Violin Forum/Message Board

Stradigenious · Junior Member Joined: 14 Aug 2010 Posts: 4

Hy all

I'm Armando from Switzerland and new to this forum. Usually i build spanish guitars but now i have a violin project because my little doughter preferes violins over guitars. However the project is on hold due to a couple of problems. I wan't to build my first violin after a stradivarius model. Therefore i have a book from S.F. Sacconi. The book shows the outline of the mold of the G model and the total lenght of the mold is indicated as 35,4cm.
Another drawing shows the top of that violin and the lenght is also indicated 35,4cm. Now my question. How come the two measurements are the same.
If i look at a violin i see that the ribs are always about 2 or 3mm inwards from the outline of the top and back.

Does anybody have an explanation for that?

Thanks a lot

regards

Armando
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L P Reedy · Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2010 7:56 pm Post subject:

I've seen a few different numbers for the length of the G mold, which would not seem to be hard to measure. The one I suspect is right is about 350 mm. That would only leave 2 mm for overhang plus ribs for a 354 mm top length, so I suspect that drawing is not really based on the G mold. I made a rough copy of the G mold 354 mm long, which resulted in at least 360 mm body length, which at the time I thought was correct. My other molds are all shorter than that.

DonLeister · Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 12:22 pm Post subject:

Hi Armando,

The Sacconi book is not the best guide to making a violin, nor is the outline of the mold that is illustrated in his book. Many have said the mold does not work well.
A good source for a mold would be a Strad magazine poster or Francois Denis's book on design which has very accurate scans of Stradivari's molds.

rs · Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 1:51 pm Post subject:

If this helps, here is what I did. I photo copied the back of a 1703 Strad (the Tivador Nachez) from the Bein and Fushi calendar, and then enlarged the copy until it measured lifesize. I then scribed a hair over 4 mm in all around for the mold and used my photocopy for the corners.

Hope it helps.
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Stradigenious · Junior Member Joined: 14 Aug 2010 Posts: 4

Michael Darnton · Posted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 4:04 pm Post subject:

The Sacconi drawing is famously unreliable: it results in an instrument which is the wrong size, and doesn't match any Stradivari violin outline. The STRAD magazine posters are the best place to get an outline.
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violinarius · Member Joined: 14 Dec 2007 Posts: 171

If you prefer designing then this might be what you want.

http://zhurnal.lib.ru/m/muratow_s_w/violin_design.shtml